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Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Pakistan's Response to the Peshawar Attack

LOSING
HEAD AND HEART

Maryam Sakeenah

Tragedies like the one in Peshawar are litmus tests for any
nation- either bringing out the best, or exposing the bare bones. Pakistan’s
response is curiously similar to the U.S response to 9/11. The fact that the
U.S’s counter-terror strategy accounts for the genesis of a much more brutal
TTP and ISIS is lost to us. In the same manner as the US filled up prisons
contravening law and depriving suspects and inmates of fair judicial process in
its paranoia after 9/11, Pakistan is all set to establish special military
courts in contravention of constitutional procedure, for swift conviction of
‘terrorists.’ The horrors that were unleashed in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and
elsewhere in the name of national security are a forgotten narrative in the new
Pakistan post 16/12.

Our collective response to the tragedy shows a febrile
national demand for vengeance. Ironically, we are baying for the enemy’s blood
just like the enemy is baying for ours- in the process, we lose the moral high
ground we think we possess. In the process, ‘the
faces change from pig to man and man to pig, and pig to man again- and already
it is becoming impossible to say which was which.’

At present there are two extremist discourses in the
country: the first, of course, is personified by the likes of the clerics at
Lal Masjid and other fanatical groups, invoking religion to justify fanatical
militancy. This religious extremism has come handy for movements like the
Taliban who hide behind it for moral cover of their actions. There is, however,
another extremist discourse: it comes from the liberals who have joined the
chorus for an unrelenting militarist approach in response to the Peshawar
attack. This high-pitched chorus decries any counter narrative or stirring of
dissent. In the new Pakistan post 16/12, no one can take a different approach
to dealing with the problem of terrorism in Pakistan, and have their opinion
respected.

Anyone who does not take sides in these extremist discourses
and believes in giving a chance to stable peace through justice and effective
longterm peacebuilding is termed unpatriotic at best, and a
terrorist-sympathizer, even supporter more commonly. There is no room for
dissent. In this extremist furore, all hardline stances seem to have suddenly
been vindicated. The iron-fisted policies of Musharraf that helped create the
TTP are now being interpreted as farsighted wisdom. Frenzied calls for razing
madrassahs to the ground or burning down mosques no longer sound outrageous in
the spirit of febrile jingoism.

The strongly militarist strategy gives overweening powers to the army to deal
with an issue that requires a more variegated longterm approach. It is likely
to turn the country into a military state. The policy is uninsightful as it
aims to do more of the same that
created this monster, in order to eliminate it.The TTP emerged as a much more brutal and
militant force than the original Taliban movement as a result of Pakistan’s
disastrous decision to support the US in Afghanistan and sending its forces in
the tribal areas to stop support for the anti-US Afghan resistance. This made
the fiercely independent Pashtun tribes turn their guns against the Pakistan
army and state.A
renunciation of this ill-advised national policy is necessary as a first step
to heal and rebuild, even as we take necessary firm action against the
unrelenting perpetrators.Besides,
the clandestine channels of support and funding to these militant groups must
be traced and exposed before the nation. The enemy is not just the gun-toting
Taliban militant, but his trainer, financier and facilitator. These vital
connections have always been the state’s well-kept secret. And now, questions
cannot be asked as we give a free rein to the military to ‘exterminate all
brutes.’

In the
tide of this nationalistic fervour to exterminate the brutes, drone operations
in Pakistan suddenly and silently receive endorsement by national consensus.
Questions are no longer welcome about civilian casualties or other fallout of
the operation in the tribal areas. Answers are no longer deserved by the
nation. The supreme ultimate goal is invincible national security, and ‘to this
end, all means must give way.’ While the need for security is vital and
understandable, bypassing all that is legal and rational and moral ought to be
taken with a pinch of salt.

The
deeper problems have to be dealt with through a wider, more insightful
non-military approach: combating extremist discourse that misuses religion to
justify terrorism and creating an effective counter discourse; listening and
understanding, dialogue, mutual compromise and reconciliation; rehabilitation
and peacebuilding. There are numerous examples in the past- even the recent
past- of how war-ravaged communities drenched in the memory of oppression and
pain, seething with unrelenting hate, have undertaken peacebuilding with some
success. Possibilities to create the conditions that had led to ceasefires that
brought temporary respite to the nation during this war, should have been
explored with sincerity.

The series of executions after the Peshawar
tragedy is also regrettable on many counts.
Many of these convicts were juveniles when they committed the crime,
brainwashed and swayed by passions. Many had confessions extracted through
torture. These were the small fry, while the big fish have escaped the noose.
So many high profile murderers and criminals go scot free, whereas these
brainwashed juvenile offenders from an ethnic minority, a disadvantaged
background are picked out selectively for blind 'justice.' Selective justice is
injustice. Two such cases which have been highlighted by human rights groups
are that of Shafqat Hussain convicted at the age of 14, and Mushtaq Ahmed who
was tortured into a confession without being given access to a fair trial.

Our uninsightful reactionary policies reflect a loss of head
and heart in the wake of the Peshawar tragedy. In this feverish frenzy of
extremisms baying for each others blood, voices of moderation , justice and
peace are dying out. And the rest is
Silence.